Back to 2004/05 season

Poetic Licence No.5 (Gordon Hall, Apr. 1st, 2005)


ComposerMusic
(1) SuppéOverture "The Jolly Robbers"
(2) Tchaikovsky"The Nutcracker" (Waltz of the Flowers)
(3) TraditionalThe banks of green willow
(4) DeliusOn hearing the first cuckoo in spring
(5) Holst"The Planets" (Neptune)
(6) Henry WoodFantasia on British sea songs
(7) J. S. BachJesu, joy of man's desiring
(8) ElgarChanson de matin
(9) Gilbert and Sullivan"The Mikado" ("The sun whose rays")
(10) ElgarEnigma Variations ("Nimrod")
(11) Flanders and SwannThe hippopotamus song

This is the fifth of Ron's programmes in which music is alternated with poetry. The poems which he read prior to each piece are as follows:

(1) When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre (Kipling)

(2) The Flowers (W. H. Davies)

(3) Willow Song from "Othello" (Shakespeare)

(4) A great time (W. H. Davies)

(5) In praise of Neptune (Campion) (Also exists as a song entitled "Neptune's Empire")

(6) The Liner she's a lady (Kipling)

(7) Now is the time when we recall (Betjeman)

(8) On Westminster bridge (Wordsworth)

(9) The moon (R. L. Stevenson)

(10) (The only thing Ron could find for this was the quotation from Genesis: "Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord". There is, however, Christopher Smart's "Let Nimrod the mighty hunter bind a leopard to the altar and consecrate his spear to the Lord" which was set by Britten in "Rejoice in the Lamb")

(11) I had a hippopotamus (Patrick Barrington - who also wrote a poem beginning "I had a duck-billed platypus" but finding a piece of music to go with that would be quite a challenge!)